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KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM

DEAR PAO PERSIDA ACOSTA Editor’s note: Dear PAO is a daily column of the Public Attorney’s Office. Questions for Chief Acosta may be sent to dearpao@manilatimes.net

Dear PAO,

If a person was detained and his captors, who are private individuals, asked for money from the relatives of the captive in exchange for releasing him, but the relatives did not heed their demands and the captive was released the next day, can the captors still be charged with kidnapping? The captors are claiming that they cannot be charged with kidnapping, but only with slight illegal detention, because their purpose was allegedly not attained considering that they did not receive any ransom. Is that correct? Please advise.

Ferdie

Dear Ferdie, Kidnapping and serious illegal detention, and slight illegal detention are two separate crimes penalized under separate provisions of the law. The Revised Penal Code (Code, for brevity), as amended, discusses these crimes as follows:

“Article 267. Kidnapping and serious illegal detention. – Any private individual who shall kidnap or detain another, or in any other manner deprive him of his liberty, shall suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death:

“1. If the kidnapping or detention shall have lasted more than five days.

“2. If it shall have been committed simulating public authority.

“3. If any serious physical injuries shall have been inflicted upon the person kidnapped or detained; or if threats to kill him shall have been made.

“4. If the person kidnapped or detained shall be a minor, female or a public officer.

“The penalty shall be death where the kidnapping or detention was committed for the purpose of extorting ransom from the victim or any other person, even if none of the circumstances abovementioned were present in the commission of the offense.

“Article 268. Slight illegal detention. – The penalty of reclusion temporal shall be imposed upon any private individual who shall commit the crimes described in the next preceding article without the attendance of any of the circumstances enumerated therein. x x x

“If the offender shall voluntarily release the person so kidnapped or detained within three (3) days from the commencement of the detention, without having attained the purpose intended, and before the institution of criminal proceedings against him, the penalty shall be prisión mayor in its minimum and medium periods and a fine not exceeding One hundred thousand pesos (P100,000).” (Emphasis supplied)

The second paragraph of Article 267 of the said Code clearly imposes a higher penalty for the crime of kidnapping for ransom, without distinction as to whether or not the victim or any other person heeded the demand.

Although the third paragraph of Article 268 of the Code provides for an extenuation if the offender voluntarily releases the detainee within three days from the commencement of the detention, without having attained the purpose intended, and before the institution of criminal proceedings, such an extenuation is only applicable to slight illegal detention, not to kidnapping and serious illegal detention. We reiterate that these crimes are separate and distinct from each other. As there is no express mention that the third paragraph of Article 268 is applicable to Article 267, it can only be applied exclusively to slight illegal detention. Accordingly, the assailants may be charged with the crime of kidnapping for ransom even if they did not actually receive any ransom.

Moreover, the Supreme Court through the late Associate Justice Jose Benedicto Luis L. Reyes elucidated in the case of Luis Asistio et al. vs. Hon. Lourdes P. San Diego (G.R. No. L-21991, March 31, 1964) that:

“Petitioner vigorously argue that the last paragraph of Article 267 applies not only to slight illegal detention but also to kidnapping and serious illegal detention penalized by Article 267; so that even if the detention was made for the purpose of extorting ransom, the penalty would be reduced to prision mayor and fined if the requisites of Article 268, last paragraph, do obtain. Upon the other hand, the prosecution sustains the proposition that under the last paragraph of Article 267, all that is required for the imposition of the death penalty is that (a) there be kidnapping, and (b) that the kidnapping be resorted to for the purpose of extorting ransom, since said last paragraph explicitly provides that punishment “even if none of the circumstances above-mentioned (i.e., in the preceding paragraphs of Article 267) were present in the commission of the offense”, and that the third paragraph of Article 268 modifies only slight illegal detentions under that article and does not apply to the acts described in Article 267.

“Consideration of the legislative history of these articles will show that the legal thesis propounded by the petitioners in this case is untenable, and that the view of the prosecution was correct. x x x

“Five things are immediately apparent from a comparison of this original version and the text as it stood when petitioners committed the crime charged, and they are:

“1. That Kidnapping under Article 267 depended solely on the circumstances in which the kidnapping took place, irrespective of the end sought by the kidnapper;

“2. That the third paragraph of Article 268 already existed in the original version, and plainly was not intended to apply to crimes under Article 267;

“3. Article 268 then described two variants of slight illegal detention: x x x

“Clearly, therefore, Articles 267 and 268 were originally mutually exclusive.”

We hope that we were able to answer your queries. This advice is based solely on the facts you have narrated and our appreciation of the same. Our opinion may vary when other facts are changed or elaborated.

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2023-06-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://digitaledition.manilatimes.net/article/281651079498861

The Manila Times